Microsoft's applied sciences department manager Stevie Bathich explains why the 1366x768 Surface RT screen is actually better than the iPad's Retina display - fancy display technology talk. Conclusion? "Doing a side by side with the new iPad in a consistently lit room, we have had many people see more detail on Surface RT than on the iPad with more resolution." I'm sure there's some truth behind the sciency talk, but I highly doubt that the Surface's display bests the iPad's. Seeing is believing, but since The Netherlands is not important, I won't get the opportunity to compare for a long time to come.

This is when you reverse engineer Apple declarations about "RETINA" for first iPhones that got them, you get numbers of DPI at USAGE DISTANCE.

Surface have similar ratio of DPI at USAGE DISTANCE.

So you benefit from higher iPad resolution only in 2 cases:

1) For some strange reason you use your tablet closer than usual.
2) You are those lucky 30% or so of population that have better eyes than those used for defining "RETINA", but there are high chances that iPad is still over kill for you.

So for 70% of population, for the most usage scenarios Surface HEAVE RETINA DISPLAY.

I ware glasses... but with them my corrected vision is 20/20. Text looks clearer to me on my friends iPad 3 vs my iPad 2. It does reduce eyestrain for me to read on a retina display. The pixels are not wasted.

In windows cleartype was created as a software solution to compensate for typical low density LCD screens. I read an article a few weeks ago that stated that Microsoft did not apply cleartype to metro (or whatever the non sexy actual name is now) because it is built with higher density displays in mind (so now I am confused that they claim to be using cleartype on a surface... but perhaps it is more branding than software this time). Cleartype sharpened things, but it also distorted fonts a bit in the process. Apple had a similar technology that was more accurate to the intention of the font designer, but was not as sharp on the screen. With retina class displays, you can render the font as it was intended without distorting it to look sharper on a low density lcd. MS should really be wanting to use a high density display in the long term, so I am surprised they did not push to use it on a showcase product for the same reason.

As for glair... I really hate the display manufactures and Apple went insane and pushed shiny displays. I understand why phones or iPads have it because you are pawing all over the screen and those coatings were fragile and hard to clean. I special ordered a 17 macbook with a anti-glare screen, because after decades of paying for nice tube monitors with special low glair coatings, I could not understand why we would want to go backwards. If the Surface does nothing more than to make manufacturers work to minimize glair on other products, I am going to have to thank MS for its contribution.

I really wish I could find the article that I read about cleartype not being in metro... because it went into wonderful detail about font rendering and hi-dpi even if it was wrong about it not being in metro.